Big Brother, Little Britain
A favourite 'fun' 'teambuilding' or 'group' activity that teachers often put in front of captive students is that sinking ship exercise, or variations on it where you're asked to choose which poor fucker you'd have to kick out of the hot air balloon, in what order, to save your own skin. There's usually a societal context, so you'd have to decide whether you'd prioritise the life or death of the plumber, the doctor, the teacher or the priest and so on.
I think the process was supposed to help us understand the relative value of the work undertaken by people in society - who contributes the most and the least. It was also sometimes an exercise in consensus forming or a taste of majority democracy.
You weren't allowed to stray from the rules of the game: the ship could ultimately only keep afloat with one passenger, and you had to keep picking off one person at a time, and your choice had to be 'reasoned'. So you couldn't, say, suggest fixing the boat or committing mass suicide or simply having a brawl. That would be messing about.
This vile little 'game' is one that students are expected to take seriously, and draw lessons from, on its own terms. Looking at it now, it is a gem of an exercise in inculcating an individualist and dog-eat-dog logic. It was couched in the scenario of a crisis, and I guess this is the very logic the bosses try to instill in workers - one of triage or the least-worst option; A&E wards or incontinence services, fund four year olds or ESOL classes, tax nurses more or accept tuition fees, city academy or no school, New Labour or the BNP.
'Shilpa Poppadum' or Jade 'Face of Hate'. Ok, I didn't cast a vote, nor am I strictly compelled to engage with any of this. But it is compelling. And there's a logic, albeit confused, to the whole analogy - perhaps.
I was in a caf trying to watch Jade's eviction earlier tonight, but between the kitchen noise, the low-volume and the bizarre running commentary of the two women nearest to the TV, it was difficult to follow. I kind of knew already that I was going to have a bit of a wrangle in my head about the whole scenario. I have a few, perhaps tentative, conclusions.
I know a lot of people just like Jade, who speak like Jade, tan their boobs like Jade, and consider voting BNP, as Jade probably would, should they stand in her area. Many have been friends in the past, some are still. Very few of them would admit to being racist, Jew hating, but most of them are, in all the ways that I understand racism. There's a whole market of products, magazines and programming aimed at them. They're lucrative - mainly as non-unionised low paid workers, divided by our education system. This is what Britain is openly about, until it is embarrassingly international while you're trying to drum up business and neo-colonial acceptance in India. And for fuck sake, is Jade today much different to the Jade, darling of the nation, that won Big Brother before; Jade who's now had her perfume pulled from the shelves. But that's only part of the question for me.
I also know a fair few self-styled high caste princesses. Shilpa is repulsive as far I'm concerned, and frankly fucks me off far more than Jade. She's a pale, high caste, super-rich doll, with an aggravating voice, eliciting this sickening chorus of acceptance - and probably deserves more than a bit of bullying. While it bothers me a lot to see all manifestations of racism, I wouldn't be surprised to see her face, along the line, on some skin-bleaching soap that her no doubt dark-skinned servants would be encouraged to use.
It makes me fume that you can have the Sun on its front cover urging its bigoted readership to 'EVICT THE FACE OF HATE', while on page 2 is their usual stock of racist scapegoating - '600 use asylum 'cheat'. You have Brown parading as PM in India courting big business, laying a wreath for Gandhi, hugging kids in a school in Delhi reliant on some UK tax money crumbs. Brown should shoulder his part of the blame for accelerating the economic and political system that creates the social reality of both Jade and Shilpa. There are a hundred insidious hypocrisies to note, if I could be bothered.
But a few points. There is obviously a class issue at stake. I don't make apologies for any bigot or racist, but I do think that in the absence of being able to articulate, or give useful political expression to, rightful class hatred, it's not a-typical of British white working class reality to be ever ready to spew mouth loads of racist vitriol. And there is a daily education in this provided by the likes of the Sun and the tabloid press. And from New Labour through their own work in demonising of Muslim people and asylum seekers.
I also know, that for all the establishment pretence at outrage at Jade, she is their monster. She currently represents the ultimate in the crass idea of a rags to riches, success story; that perverse kind of spectacle, in the crucible of this society - loved for making her money through comparing unfavourably with the lowest common denominator. The two women sitting by the TV tonight, spoke like Jade, were hard-faced like Jade and were gloating over her fall from grace - she apparently deserved it, the stupid fucking bitch. Apparently, also, Shilpa will win now because now she's gonna be a fucking martyr. Everyone'll be forced to vote for her...
This week it's Jade, but believe me so many eyes will be waiting impatiently to watch the Indian fuck up and god only knows what conclusions will be made from this new insight in retrospect with regard to Jade.
Push comes to shove, they should both be drowned, no second thought, though Brown first, certainly. This week's like the best type of car-crash, and thanks to our media moguls and politicians, has probably done considerable damage to the collective understanding of issues of race and class.
- Robin's blog
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Really Who Gives a Fuck
I have to say that I think BB represents just what a sad society we have become. Its rather like the various soaps which allow people to replace their own sad lives by living vicariously through somebody else's. If the truth be known the events on BB were probably all stage managed to gain it some attention as its ratings figures had fallen through the floor. And as they say any publicity is good publicity. All those involved are probably clients of Max Clifford.
I saw some of the comments in a clip on the news. Interestingly, I doubt that anybody could be prosecuted for what was said under the Race Relations legislation. If they could 70% of the British population could be prosecuted because you hear this stuff everyday by the majority of people in all sorts of situations. For all the crap Blair and people come out with about Britain being a tolerant society it clearly isn't, and not just in relation to race. If you go abraod if ever there is trouble its nearly always British yobs that are at the middle of it.
And is it any wonder. Just as you get the hypocrisy of Britain raising Cain over immigration, it uses low waged immigrants to keep its economy going there is a hue and cry over anti-social behaviour yet the TV is full of programmes like "Neighbours from Hell", "The Toughst Pubs in Britain", "When ASBO's Go Wrong" (I don't know if this last one actually exists or not but you know what I mean. All of them in reality glorify yobbish behaviour, and in a society where celebrity is the way to make money - just look at all the people I've never heard of like this Jade character who appear to have done nothing of merit yet somehow are celebrities - then getting yourself on TV is seen by many as the means to do that. I try to avoid all these kinds of programmes but I was unfortunate enough to watch one of these Opportunity Knocks programmes a while ago that one of the kids had got on, and saw those awful cheeky girls. Yet despite being totally awaful they ended up getting a recording contract - mind you they can probably sing better than Ringo Starr and he did alright.
Do you think I could get a slot on Grumpy Old Men?
Arthur Bough
Shilpa
I have to say I can't relate at all to Robin's 'class hatred' of Shilpa. She seems like a perfectly nice woman to me - obviously she's posh and a Bollywood star, but by the standards of such things she seems quite down to earth to me. And to be honest, I can far more easily imagine having a conversation with her than with Jade Goody or her damaged and demented mother...
And Arthur, lots of people give a fuck. It would be better if they were interested in something else, no doubt. But maybe they are, too. It's quite possible to both watch BB and follow the news in Iraq. Or at least I manage to... Jade Goody's fame is, of course, preposterous on one level. But it's real enough: for good or ill, the girl is a celebrity. Politico types don't do themselves any favours by not having a clue who these people are....
Jade Goody
I think Goody is too dim to know what a racist is
Clive, Why?
Clive, I know lots of people that don't know who Jade Goody is, other than you now can't avoid seeing something about it on the news. The vast majority of them are not politicos, just people that have a life.
Arthur Bough
Life
Why isn't it possible to watch Big Brother and still have a life?
Didn't Say It Wasn't
Clive, I didn't say it wasn't. I said that there are lots of people who have no idea who these people are, and have no interest in knowing who they are, because they have better things to do with their lives than to watch other people in false surroundings. I said that I felt that a lot - not all - people that watch it are like a lot of people that watch soaps, they are living their lives vicariously through other peoples. The evidence of that is the number of people that cannot distinguish fiction from real life. They are a modern equivalent of the opium of the people. And I have a similar approach to them as Marxists have to that other opium of the people - religion.
I was going to say that its perhaps an age thing, because a lot of the people I talk to in the gym are the same age as me, or older. They all are baffled as to why so many people devote so much of their lives to these things. But then I suppose the kind of people that get up and go to the gym rather than sitting in the house watching TV probably are inclined to that perspective. For some reason the gym always have some music channel on that none of the people in the gym want on, and normally ask to be turned down. The other week there was something on it about some competition to win something or other if you knew the answers necessary to make you too an "A" list celebrity. The response of pretty much everyone in the gym was the same. First to laugh at how shallow all this was, second to have no clue as to who these celebrities were, and third to feel no worse off in their lives for not having any clue who they were.
But I don't think its just age. My youngest son who is a media Production graduate, and who watches a lot of TV, and films, and who has watched some BB in the past, said this morning when there was some news comment about Channel 4's Board meeting, "They should just cancel it, and put something decent on." He's not a politico either.
Its not that I am some cultural snob that only wants to watch intellectual output either. I remember at University having a debate with some Sparts who tried to tell me that I should enjoy Shakespeare. I told them I'd decide for myself what I enjoyed, and if I wante to watch something escapist I would. I watch lots of stuff that is just funny and undemanding. My problem with BB is that I just don't think its entertaining, nor are all the other "Reality Shows", that are rolled off as mass production entertainment, a bit like the way TV has found they can make money by nearly every channel running phone in quizes based on questions that everyone knows the answer to, or now the Quiz TV shows where they have some simple answers with small prizes, that encourage people to keep wasting money ringing in for the bigger prizes that nobody wins. My further problem is the infatuation with the cult of personality, or more correctly the cult of non-personality celebrity. It used to be limited to the Royals, but they became a laughing stock, now capitalism seems to have found an endless supply of "Royals" as replacements to distract the masses with. The Romans used to call it Bread and Circuses. And of course the embedding in the culture of the idea of celebrity in itself is ideological turning people away from the idea of changing their own lives through collective action, and towards the idea of great people being the masters of our destiny, and worse that the sole goal in life is to be like them. It is a necessary consequence of Lottery culture, a feature which Blair and Brown seem happy to develop with the infatuation with gambling.
Perhaps it is a symptom as with the last days of Rome of the kind of decay that sets in when a system has passed its sell by date.
Arthur Bough